Drone academy: Reaching for the sky

Available for over a year

Memory Sidira is buzzing with excitement as she talks about what she is learning during her course at Malawi’s Drone and Data Academy - the first of its kind in Africa. The Academy’s aim is to build local expertise for Malawi’s expanding drone industry and to teach young Africans from across the continent 21st Century skills in drone flight and data analysis. Ruth Evans hears how drones are inspiring young Africans like Memory to reach for the sky. After completing the first course run by the Drone and Data Academy last year, 24-year-old Debra Duwa Matambalika is doing her dream job, working as a drone pilot delivering essential medicines to remote rural areas. Thumbiko Zingwe is another former graduate of the Academy – but he is not just reaching for the sky; His goal is to set up Malawi’s very own space programme to help address critical development issues on the ground. He has a futuristic vision of Malawi’s skies being full of drones - “like a semi-Wakanda” in his favourite super-hero film Black Panther. The technology, he believes, will leapfrog one of the poorest countries on earth into the 21st Century: “It’s the beginning of a beautiful story that will have a beautiful ending.”